


A Very DirkJake Summer

by sunflowerwonder



Category: Homestuck
Genre: (it's not as sexy as it sounds), 1920s AU, Amnesia AU, Castaway AU, Demon Summoning AU, High School AU, Hookups, Literal Roller Coaster of a Marriage Proposal AU, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Missed Connections, Playstation vs. Xbox AU, Sadstuck, Sexual Content, Space AU, Starting things off proper, Various AUs, Zines, dystopia au, ldr au, music festival AU, musical accompaniment, royal au, there's so many AUs lads, tinder au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-21
Packaged: 2018-11-07 19:36:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 8,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11065719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerwonder/pseuds/sunflowerwonder
Summary: It's hard to find your soulmate.





	1. The one where Dirk is a castoff prince and Jake offers him a home.

**Author's Note:**

> starting things off with a royal AU bc i know what im about son.

You're a lost prince looking for asylum in an enemy territory. Desperate and alone and with a jagged cut along your throat. Prospit has little care for your plight. It is wary with every reason. 

You're on your knees. You reckon it's the first time you've ever done it. 

A man steps out from the rafters of a golden arc behind the throne. He was near invisible while enshadowed, but beneath the bright stained glass of the Prospitian throneroom you wonder how you could have ever missed him. 

"Your own political upheaval is none of Prospit's concern," Queen Jane of Prospit is saying, and you have to drag your attention away from her younger brother and crown prince to regain control of the conversation. 

"The Empress will turn her attention to Prospit next," you say. You still feel bright green eyes on you but don't meet their gaze. "Kill me if you wish, but if nothing else consider this a pretty damn brutal warning." 

"Jane," he calls to his sister, wide-eyed and dripping with empathy. You've never met a kinder soul. His pity is undeserved—Derse's restlessness was the fault of your own selfish leadership. Yet the way he looks at you makes you feel like a wronged saint, a martyr. 

Later, after he's secured you lodgings and food and the finest medical attention, and further, after you've grown accustomed to the airy desert cottons of Prospit and the slide of silk clothing, he kisses you. Under a particularly bright moon, hands cupped beneath your jaw, thumb running across your thinning scar. 

He makes a noise that sounds vaguely like the hum of a hymn when you dip your hands beneath the hem of his shirt. He pulls you in closer, so close, and the world seems to swell into something warm and viscous and undeniably alcoholic. 

You pull back just to tell him you'll never leave him. He jokes that you don't exactly have anywhere to go. 

You tell him that it doesn't matter. This is all you could ever hope for. 


	2. The one where Jane is a terrible wingman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk and Jane are love and life and all that's honest in the world.
> 
> Bar Pickup AU (?)
> 
> That's probably not a thing.

"Mm," you hum to Jane from where you're leaned backwards against the bar. Your elbow rests in something sticky. "Gay or straight?" 

Jane looks up from her phone and shifts her head towards where you're covertly pointing. 

"Oh Jesus," she replies. "I like to talk up my sharp eyes, Strider, but you know that's not my tract of expertise. Snap a picture of him and send it to Roxy." 

The man in question is laughing with a group of newfound friends at a distant table. He's glanced their way at least three times. 

"I'll flip you a coin for him," you propose. Jane flushes. Uncrosses and crosses her legs where she sits poised at a barstool. 

"You will do nothing of the sort, buster," she says, pointedly. "He seems to be having a grand old time. If he wants to talk to us he will do so at his leisure." 

"Us? So you want to go halfsies? I'm game." 

"That is not, actually, what I meant." Jane rubs a drink-cooled hand against her cheek. "And I think you damn well know it, Dirk." 

"But if he's straight I'd still get to sleep with him," you say.  The man's eyes dart towards your party's direction again. Jane's direction, more likely. 

"But if he's not straight you'll have a very unwelcome third party," she says with a snort. She's clearly embarrassed, but trying in her best Crocker ways to seem cool and composed about it. 

"Maybe, Jane, but you'd be a candidate for the wingman hall of fame if you—" 

"Strider, really." 

"You don't think he's sexy?" 

"He's attractive, yes, but—" 

"Can you just, I don't know, feel him out for me then? Flirt a little? I don't want to get myself into a barfight just because a dude threw off my gaydar and the sequential come-on bruised his masculinity—" 

"Strider." 

"Jane," you say. "Please." 

Something in Jane snaps. She huffs out a breath and composes herself enough to stand. Holds out her drink. "You're such a lost cause in the concept of not turning everything into a convoluted plot of sexual initiation," she says. "Honestly, Dirk, I'm no nominee for direct communication, but I'm fairly sure this is why you haven't gotten laid."

You scoff. "I've gotten—"

"You! There! The cute one with the glasses!" 

The man looks up, and his brief shock melts into a lopsided smile. Jane waves her glass as if to keep his attention. A few spare eyes in the room also follow her. 

"My friend here wants to sleep with you," Jane says, so-matter-of-fact it takes your brain a few seconds to process what the fuck she's doing. 

"No," you say as soon as the wheels in your mind catch up. You grab her arm. "No, no, Jesus Crocker, no—" 

"Are you straight?" she asks. 

The man seems to be amused by the across-the-bar proposition and admits, looking directly at you now: "I'd consider myself curious." 

"Fuck me," you mutter under your breath. Jane laughs. 

"Wonderful," she says. He's making his way towards the two of you and you want to die. Drown yourself in your shot glass despite it being 2 ounces and empty. There's a few chuckles and a whoop from the surrounding crowd as things settle back into to the usual level of conversation.

Jane tucks her clutch under her arm and gives you a wave. "I expect my induction into your hall of fame by tomorrow morning, Strider," she chimes. 

The man steps besides you as you watch her stride off. "Jake," he says, holding out a hand to you in greeting. 

"Dirk," you say, taking it. Your cheeks feel hot. "Sorry about that." 

He's got a wide grin and a firm grip. "Nonsense," he says. "I've had far stranger hootenanny happen to me in foreign bars, don't you worry. Can I buy you a drink?" 


	3. The one where I mention some of these are sad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of these are sad.

It’s a high school bedroom, though you graduated last week. The sheets are crumpled. The walls are lined with posters. The better half of your closet lies unwashed on your floor. There are scrap wires everywhere and CDs lining an oak shelf in the corner because buying them in this decade was ironic and you appreciated the merits of owning physical copies of things and there was always that bonus of having something solid and real in your hands for once and  Jake for some ungodly reason genuinely _preferred them—_

A few dozen of the shimmering disks are gifts from him. 

He’s leaving for South America in three days. A gap year, he’d told you with a forced grin and a desperate look for your face to not fall in disappointment. (It did anyway.) 

You got home and called up Dave to tell him you won’t be having a roommate after all and that, yeah, you’ll need a little extra cash each month until you can get a job in your nice perfect little empty college town and then you fall headfirst into your sheets and try not to feel every memory of Jake’s smile start to leak out your crushed brain. 

The residue pools on your pillow. 

You’re hot and sweaty and the room is dark and a fan is buzzing but everything wraps around your throat and leaves you shivering in an impossible, overwhelming swelter. You imagine Jake lying next to you, eyes hazy, exhausted, body shirtless, he’s sweating too, and you scrunch your eyes and reach a hand into your sweatpants to feel something,  anything , but it just hangs there. Blunt against your skin. 

You groan in frustration. Decide you probably need to taste the bland mush of dinner against your tongue. You need energy to keep going. To keep moving forward. Forward. Towards what, you don’t know. 

You mentally weigh how shitty it is to confess to someone three days before they see the world, but decide either way you’ve already lost him to it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [[s] I'm Gonna Make My Move](https://youtu.be/SrxBlMqbz04?t=37m37s)


	4. The one where they're soon-to-be-best-friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote all these but I don't really have an order for them so... don't expect well-handled shifts in tone.

He's a tumble of a ten year old with bright green eyes and band-aids across his knees but you've got four awkward inches of height on him in the aftermath of your latest growthspurt and you like to think that makes you his superior. 

He's holding out a soccer ball to you. Forcefully. It thumps against your chest. 

"Grandma says I should play with you," he says. 

His grandmother owns the summer camp your brother has shipped you off to while he films abroad for three months. 

"I," you start, a bit dumbfounded and egobruised at the realization that you're a lonely child to be watched, to be pitied. "I've never—I don't want to play." 

You give a firm _tch_ at his subsequent furrowed brow. The boys in your anime do that to sound dismissive sometimes, so maybe it will work here too. 

"You don't have a clue how to play, huh," he says.  He's missing the tooth behind a canine and looks strange. Like a wolf-pup. 

"I'm from L.A.," you tell him, boldly. You square your shoulders. "I live in a penthouse apartment." 

"So," he says, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at some trees. "I live in the house a hop back there, friend." 

"So, they don't have soccer fields next to penthouse apartments in L.A.," you state. "And we're not friends." 

"We're kinda friends," he says. 

"No, we're not." 

"Even just a little?" 

"No." 

"I think we are," he says. He's got a stupid grin on his face. "Even if it's just the tiniest smidgen. We are." 

You roll your eyes. 

"Whatever," you say, arms crossed. "Are you going to teach me how to play or not?" 


	5. The one where it's the 1920s and everything is wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for period homophobia this chapter.

5th of June, 1927 

Dear Mister Strider, 

I have enjoyed your company over the past few months in the way few men are fortunate enough to do with even their most desired wives. Your wit and deftness astound me even in memory, and the thought of your smile is infectious across our current divide. I care for you deeply and want you to know that in written truth, if nothing else. 

I will, however, not be returning to New York for university come autumn. My grandmother is on her sickbed after a bad run in with gasoline fumes, a few strewn-about bullet casings, and a rather hefty edition of Colonel Sassacre's Daunting Text of Magical Frivolity and Practical Japery. If she is to pass soon, which seems likely, I will have to remain here to settle affairs and take my place as head of the company. You know the high-tech world we live in! It wouldn't do much good to sit on my behind in some stuffy classroom while that right devil Crocker gets the edge on the market. I swear if she wasn't so alluring I'd have crushed her into the dust of ex-competition by now! 

But I digress. I do wish you the best in our split paths. Truly, Strider. I hope this news only hews the soil for new opportunities in your future. Who knows! Maybe you'll even find a proper lass who'll make you feel how we did or better. I would like that for you. 

All the best in this great big universe, 

Jake 


	6. The one where they get engaged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the last chapter maybe this will make up for it.

"Marry me?" he whispers so soft you almost don't hear it. It's three in the morning and his eyes are bright where the slits of city light peek through the blinds. 

Your heart drops more than a few beats and there's a rush of water in your eyes and this is the fucking _worst_ way to propose, in the middle of the night the day after you lose your job. There's no setup, no context or circumstance to the question, but it's _your question_ and it's all you can do to let out a sniff and a soft, affirmative wheeze. 

You're married in the summer and it feels like paradise wrapped up in a courthouse wedding and a bottle of cheap wine. You almost get away with not inviting your brother but he shows up anyway, slightly out of breath from fleeing the paparazzi, and tells you he knows you're such a fucking hardass about being aloof and estranged from his ever-present fame but here's a honeymoon to Japan and a thin, plastic cash card of an indeterminate but presumably high amount. "Have fun, you dumb kids," he tells both of you. 

The cameras catch up to him, then. All bright lights and loud yells as he dives into a fake potted plant like a complete moron. You scowl at the flashing bulbs but Jake simply laughs. He wraps a hand around your waist and dips you amidst the energized crowd. He tells you you're a _hot scoop, Strider_ and you can't help but laugh at his stupid joke as he kisses you. 

 


	7. The one where Dirk makes the biggest mistake of his alternate universe life.

He's a little dorky with buck teeth and thick glasses. Bright eyed but foolish in a high angle selfie above some sort of treacherous hiking ridge. The adventuring is cool, you guess, but you can't bring yourself to imagine those noodle arms holding you at night.

Jake. 22. Likes dogs.

You swipe left.


	8. The one where Jake is out of town and Dirk is lonely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vaguely nsfw.

"Hey, babe."

"Heya ch-ove! How are you doing this fine evening?"

"Did you just call me a chove?"

"What?"

"You said 'chove.' I admit I'm not the most versed in the intricate art of the truly batshit Jake English verbosity but I'm pretty sure that's not a thing, and if it was, not a good one."

"Oh bugger off! I meant to call you 'love' but my brain was just so hardwired to 'chum' after all our strictly platonic chumfoolery over the years I crossed a few components."

"Chumfoolery?"

"Alright! Now you're just badgering me about like a cruel minx."

"Hmm. Kinda thought you were into that, English."

"Only in the right environments, you absolute card."

"What kind of environments?"

"The kind that are almost exclusively when I can see you naked."

"Oh really? I can pull up Facetime if you want."

"Oh—Oh, sweet bejeezus, Strider. It's like 4 o' clock in the afternoon here and I have a production meeting in a hot minute."

"Well it's a very lonely 2 a.m. here and a hot minute is all I need."

"Mmm... Don't you dare even tempt me, Dirk Strider. I am not a man of strong will."

"Fine, fine. But don't you be calling my unconscious ass here in a few hours looking for auditory accompaniment to your impending hotel jack sesh." 

"You say that as if you ever sleep!"

"If an insomniac closes his eyes while his boyfriend is out of town, did he really sleep at all?"

"Oh shush. My incredibly unsexual, lukewarm minute is almost up. Try not to spoil my last few moments with you."

"These are important philosophical questions, English."

"Surely, Strider. Surely."

"I love you too, honey."

"Hush. I love you more than the stars themselves as you'd better well know."

"Surely."

"I said hush! I really do have to be going. Try and get some sleep, love."

"I'll try, chove."

"The heavens are testing me today I see."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Aaaand I'm out the door. Good night, Dirk."

"Have a good meeting."

"I'll give it my darnedest!"

"Yeah, well, try not to think too hard about me sucking you off under the desk while you're there."

"Good _night_ , Dirk."

"Good afternoon, Jake. I'll talk to you later."

 

**[ DIRK❤ sent a picture message and said: “For the impending hotel jack sesh.” Swipe to open.]**


	9. The one where they break up.

He's a roll of eyes and an eleventh month relationship turned sour when you finally pack up your shit to leave. 

"Fuck you," you tell him, harsh words and harsher tone brushing past his shoulder like a subway stranger. He's watching YouTube on his phone, deliberately placing himself in your vicinity just so you can know how much he isn't going to help you. 

"I can't believe I'm fuckin' leaving, like _I'm_ the one who hit the gas pedal on the Relation-shit Canyon overlook." 

He looks up at you, curious, and pulls the headphones out of his ears. 

"I'm sorry?" he says. Not in the apology way, but in the _hm? were you talking shit? I wasn't listening_  kind of way. 

You shake your head and crawl an aggressive hand through your scalp and bite down the urge to tell him you love him, that you want his forgiveness, that you're not going to stifle him anymore, that you don't care if he jets off to Mexico or Argentina or wherever-the-fuck just to escape you, that you don't care that he's probably, definitely, maybe, fucking Jane, you just _want him—_ Some part of him. You want to stay with him. 

Please, please, can you stay. 

"I said," you tell him instead. "I can't believe I'm packing up my shit like I am somehow the perpetrator of the fucking darkass third-act twist our relationship has taken." 

He blinks, so fucking passive. "I was rather under the impression you were the one that wanted to break up with me." 

You scrunch your face and lift a large box up into your arms. You look him square in the jaw. 

"Those girls you're gonna fuck? When I'm out of here?" you tell him, shoving your shoulder against the front door. It gives way to a familiar hallway, soon to be a distant memory. "They ain't gonna feel like me, and you already fuckin' know it." 


	10. The one where it's just another fuckin' royalty AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this setting sounds familiar it's because I later prepossessed it for [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9412175).

The fabrics of Prospit aren’t silky like the ones in Derse. They do not shine with the gleam of fine steel or glow with the deep purple of moonlit violets. There is something distinctly matte about them. Not coarse by any means, but light and airy like thinly spun cotton. When you settle down into layers of the sheets there is only the faintest whisper of a ruffle, drowned out by the tinkling of a windchime above the bed. It’s a shimmering, twisting affair, lovingly crafted from gold and instigated by the surrounding draft.

The whole room has a soft breeze wafting through it from large, open archways exposing one side of the royal quarters to the elements. You have little idea how they are covered when it rains. Approximating what you have learned about the Prospitian people, they would probably gladly allow their Prince’s own room to flood if it meant more sustenance for the plants littering every nook and cranny of the castle.

“Relax, my crescent prince,” a soft voice coos, pulling you from your thoughts as a warm hand presses down on your chest. You sink further into the foreign fabric with a release of tense breath. Amidst the briefest beat of contemplation you glance up at the man above you, highlighted so vividly in sunlight.

“Alright,” you say, simply.

You have never been very good at foreign relations. Derse was too independent, too cold-hearted, to offer anything in the way of trade or treaty. But now, in the middle of both peace offerings and the legs of the Prospitian Prince himself, you wonder if you might be slightly more proficient in the art than anticipated.

“Oh you are delightful,” your fellow prince says in the lowest of murmurs, dragging his hand along your body to rest against your lower stomach, right above your trousers. The Prospitian is soothingly bright, with golden, sundrenched skin and eyes as deeply verdure as the vines that crawl over and beyond the bed canopy above you. You have heard the Prince's name spoken only once before, but it instinctively falls from your lips when the prince presses a kiss to your collarbone, light and airy, like the sheets, like the entire kingdom.

“Welcome to Prospit, where the days are long and the moon reflects light almost as bright as the sun itself,” Jake hums, a grin spreading across his face. “I’ve never met a Crescentborn myself, believe it or otherwise, but I hope you will enjoy me and my country as much as I am most certainly about to enjoy you and yours.”


	11. The one where they're stranded on a desert island and didn't even get to choose what music albums they would take with them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr one i've been meaning to backup since forever

** DAY 1.  **

He’s a canvas sail of salt-split skin when he looms above you. Crusted white and red-eyed. Tangled hair. 

“Golly,” he says. _Golly _ _._ For the briefest of seconds your chest lurches with a wave of pain and you’re terrified it will be the last word you will ever hear. Then the water comes: stuttering and scratching along your throat until it spills unevenly over lips. You cough, once, and then it all bubbles over. 

He rolls you over on your side and lets the water drain from your lungs onto the dampening sand. You heave ocean air tainted with a sour burn at the back of your tongue. 

“Several boys and all their howdys,” he continues. Wheezes. He’s out of breath too. Your lips feel warm and there’s an ache in your chest and you realize with the sound of a distant, crashing wave that he probably just saved your life. 

“  You’re alive.  ”  

Your vision is fading, but these last words sound much better to your ringing ears. 

** DAY 2.  **   
  
You drift in and out of sleep. Occasionally you’re shifted around. Occasionally some form of sustenance is shoved down your throat. Occasionally you hear a distant voice, prompting you to _hang in there, chum._ Vague spouts of consciousness grant you with limited information and pieced memories. You were alive. You had bruises. You ached everywhere. You were with a boy. This boy was helping you. You had fallen. You had fallen from the sky. You had been in an airplane. You had been on your way to your vacation house. You had been on your way to see your brother. Your brother, _your brother—_  
  
“Shhh, shh-shh,” the boy from before murmurs. He’s cleaned himself, though his dark hair is still tangled in the style of sweltering humidity.  
  
“Bro,” you murmur, trying to wrench yourself from the weight of his palms pressed to your breastbone.

“Easy, easy, old friend,” he says. “I think you’ve bruised a rib. By jove it may have even been me—I’ve never actually done chest compressions on anything but that wretched old lifeguard dummy—” 

A desperate moan falls out of you when you attempt to pull your shoulder away from him. Your eyes are lidded and still half asleep. Your torso refuses to twist. It gives a shooting pain when you try anyway. 

“Easy, love,” he says. 

“Bro,” you repeat. 

“Easy, easy. Go back to sleep.“    
  
**DAY 3.**

It’s sunset when you finally wake. It’s with a start and a forceful shove at whatever fabric is on top of your torso. 

You see the boy has wrapped the tattered remains of an overshirt around you. It’s a deep green. One of the sleeves is shredded. 

"Hello, sunshine,” he calls from beside you. A hand finds your shoulder again. “The earth says hello.” 

You wrench your head to look at him. Your breathing is labored from the sudden whiplash of consciousness but you process as much as you can, as much as the scorching pain in your head will allow you to. His right arm is bandaged with scraps of a white T-shirt. 

“You’ve got a concussion,” he says. “I, uh, think. I was hardly keeping an eye on you in particular but when that great old bird fell from the heavens there was all sorts of nasty debris. I grabbed the closest person I could as soon as I could, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get a good knock on the old noggin—” 

“  Fuck  ,” you hiss. 

His ramble stumbles to a halt. “Goodness. Never mind me. You should go back to sleep. You need to heal.” 

You nod dumbly.  

A broad, calloused hand finds its way to your forehead, looking for a fever. He sighs in relief when he feels how clammy you are. 

“You’re safe now,” he says. “Sleep.” 

** DAY 4.  **

“I’m Jake,” he tells you. 

“Dirk,” you reply, with a cringe. 

He’s helping you sit up. You haven’t bothered to lift your shirt yet, stiff with dried seawater, but you can already feel the pain purpling beneath it. 

“It’s nice to meet you.”  

He’s smiling. Genuine. You try and focus on his green eyes instead of the situation. 

“Fuck,” you say again, eyes drifting to the shallow excuse for a beach, the endless horizon of the ocean. It’s terrifying. Infinite. “Nice to meet you too.” 


	12. The one that's inspired by that one animation about the Chinese astronaut, you know the one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Space AU. Sadstuck. Warning for mentioned starvation/asphyxiation.

“What’s going to happen to us,” Jake murmurs. His nose and cheek are squished to the glass of the spaceship. Gazing into the void. It’s comical, in a gut-wrenching, tragic sort of way. He’s always been childish.

You do not immediately reply. You're busy obsessively reviewing the footage. Meteors, appearing from nothing, rocketing towards Earth. Reports of some sort of cosmic game. Mission control going dark. Everything destroyed in a mere matter of hours.

“Honest answer? We’ll run out of food, eventually,” you say.

Jake looks at you horrified. His mouth is open in exasperation, tugged down at the edges.

He swallows.

“You don’t,” he says. “You don’t really think—”

“That, or oxygen. Whichever fucks us over first. Give me—Give me a minute. I can run the numbers."

Jake is not listening. He floats down from the cockpit window and settles to the floor of the spaceship. It’s cold and metallic. He tucks his legs up to his chest.

“My whole life, waiting to reach the great frontier,” he says. Forehead-to-kneecap. “Now I’ll never see home again.”

You decide you have done enough reviewing and reliving of the horror and kick off from your seat. You drift alongside a few consoles that blink with red warning lights before settling beside your boyfriend. You'd trained beside Jake since childhood space camp. This was your collective dream.

“We made it,” you say. It’s your best attempt at comfort. “You know. Obliterated home planet aside.”

Jake nods. His lips are pressed tight, eyes ringed with large tears that bubble and drift in the absence of Earth's gravity.

“I was going to be the acest of the space aces,” he says. “The cat’s galaxy-print pajamas.”

“You are a whole kitten litters’ space pajamas,” you say. “Holy shit, Jake. There are so many cats dressed in appropriate universe-themed sleepwear. It looks like Roxy’s house during her hipster phase.”

Jake laughs weakly. Presses his head against your chest. Scrunches his eyes closed.

“We have Street Fighter on the console,” you say, softly. Your fingers ghost through a few strands of Jake’s hair. “We don’t have a lot of time but we’ll make it work. We’ll make it last. We’ll make it good. I promise.”


	13. The one that's NSFW.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little late on this chapter due to E3 and the fact that I didn't know Gone With The Wind was 4 hours long. 
> 
> This is the only chapter I wrote with mindless NSFW, so it's arguably the most "plot relevant" one to compensate.

"Fuck me," you tell him, breath heavy and fingers dragging across an expensive letterdesk you're bent over but the destructive scrape of fingernails is not your current priority and w _ho the fuck writes letters anyway—_

"Fuck, fuck, _fuck—_ " you scream into the bedroom. You've never been happier to have been forced by your Bro to take a work vacation. You have a half dozen freelance projects waiting for you at home but right here, right now, on this godforsaken island, all that mattered was the man you were systematically destroying every inch of a rented beach house with and it felt _great—_

"Bastard," he gasps out. The hand not currently wrapped around your dick is spread wide across the dip of your stomach as he pulls you tight into the curve of his torso. The way his chest presses against your spine feels possessive and protective and undeniably— 

"Brilliant," he says into the back of your shoulder blade. Yet another in the lengthy list of titles he's used to describe you. He's deep, so deep, his hips slowing from a brutal pace to something more languid and just so goddamn _deep—_

"I could fuck you forever," he tells you. It's not in the usual tone of dirty talk, though. It's thoughtful, almost anguished. 

"It's like we're soulmates," you mutter into antique, now ruined, wood. "Sexy, sexy, soulmates." 

He laughs. Gives one hard thrust that makes you keen. "I'm inclined to agree. I don't know how I'm ever going to top this." 

"It's all downhill from here." Your words are slurred from the desk pressing against your cheek and his innate ability to completely fucking incapacitate you. His movements have stalled in his contemplation and you tilt your hips for more. 

"Soulmates," he says, a little lost. 

"C'mon," you whine at him. "Fuck me. I want to get in at least one more round before I have to catch the tram to the airport." 


	14. The one set in a dystopia.

He’s a pretty little thing with bright eyes and too-wide ears. Glasses. Buck teeth. He grins at you, nervous, as you press what he so innocently defined as “doodads” to each of his temples and the base of his skull.

“You’re one of them science fellows,” he comments now, shrugging away when you lift his chin to press a breathing monitor to the right divot in his neck. He doesn’t have much room to squirm between the restraints around his arms and wrists, but he attempts to anyway.

You stare at him dully.

“Oh come now, you can talk to me. There’s hardly a soul here to judge.”

His breath is loud in your earpiece, but hardly the panicked wheezes you’re used to.

“What’s your name,” he asks. You spare a glance at his smile. It’s impossibly broad. A bit intimidated, but not terrified by any means.

“…Dirk,” you say, quietly, tugging down the collar of his wash-worn T-shirt to place a lead against his heart. Behind you, a monitor sparks to life with his pulse reading.

“Dirk,” he repeats. “Any chance I could ask you not to do this?"

Your fingers still. In your earpiece his breathing stutters with a hitch.

“I know I don’t have a purpose,” he says. You’re used to pleads, but something about his earnest admission catches in your chest. “I know I never quite developed a talent like you clearly have, chap. Never did do very well in all those placement tests. But grandma always said I was a late bloomer. And, honest, I know I have a place somewhere—”

“You will have your place when you’re reprogrammed,” you say, pulling yourself away. His face falls.

“I’m not something to be mended, I’m simply—”       

“I’ll make sure I code you better. Smarter. Far more efficient. I’m quite fuckin’ good at it, really,” you tell him. “You will no longer be a waste of resources. You’ll have a nice life.”

“I like my life how it is, thanks,” he says.

You remove a gas mask from your tray and move to place it over his mouth. He panics, arms pulling against the restraints that bind him to his chair in the white, sterile room as the smooth plastic molds to the shape of his face. You hear him gasp in a single, shaky breath.

“It’s a sedative,” you say, sympathy creeping into your voice. You turn a knob on the tank connected to the mask and watch it fill with fog.

“Please,” he calls, voice echoed by the plastic. “This isn’t right. A rational fellow like you aught to realize—there’s a better way—there’s a better way—”

“Relax,” you say with hardly a blink of hesitation. “Everything will be alright.”

You watch his eyes unfocus and listen to your supervisor give an all-clear. Someone in the room’s speaker thanks you for your continued devotion to the Collective. He urges you to do your best to repair your most recent patient into something superior, something productive, something useful.

 

⭐

 

When he wakes up his eyes are greener than you remember. You’ve got the fresh wound of a lasershot burned into your arm but he’s got a wild smile on his face and the wind rustling through his hair and a laugh so infectious you want to sink into the unfamiliar grassy carpet beneath you. The wind ruffles past your hair, too. You’ve never felt it so strong. The city walls had always been too high.

“Bloody hell,” he says, appraising you. “Would not have pegged you as a rebel.”

“Chock it up to genetics,” you mutter. “Now come on. Let’s blow this overhyped dystopian nightmare.”


	15. The one where I'm sad E3 is over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No new Animal Crossing. :(

There’s a rift when you enter the door, and not an Oculus one. It’s a clean break that’s been sewn back together more times than you can count. A patchwork quilt of shitty memories and shittier arguments between you and him. His bright green eyes lose a little of their luster as the chime of the shop door rings.

The resident employee, a familiar fellow you’ve frequented the checkout enough to know on acquaintance, ducks for cover beneath the counter next to some tubes of posters for an upcoming promotion. A young trainee does not. She looks only confused at the reaction, at the two of you. Yet when she catches a taste of the gloom and doom in the entryway she clues in to follow.

“Strider,” Jake says curtly. It’s a goodbye. He stalks off to the left, where lines of green-shelved games rest next to their comfortable controllers and slugging console.

You sling your hands in your pockets and wander over to the sleek black-and-blue set-up on the right. Its crowning jewel of a system stands like a monolith for humanity in a display case. A beacon of hope Jake had refused to follow.

You do not look back at your best friend, but deep down something twists in your chest. A dull ache. You were happy in your choice, yes. Better graphics. More amazingly terrible anime RPGs. By all mechanical and statistical accounts it was far and large the better system.

But today you were here to pick up a multiplayer shooter that Jake had long rambled on about. Something that had snagged his attention on a YouTube trailer a few months back and never let go. You pick up the PS4 edition of it. And sigh.

Why hadn’t he just made the rational decision to buy a PlayStation?

“Are you ready to check out?” Jake asks. Green eyes so disgustingly matte. He has his own—but different, so different—copy in his hand. You can feel its lower framerate reverberating from across the store.

That’s not why your stomach is sick though.

You shove the game in your hand back on the shelf and do a quick mental calculation of if your brother would give a fuck. Unlikely. You should be fine, you think, before stalking past your best friend to peek over the counter/disaster bunker.

You ask your cashier acquaintance if he can get an Xbox One bundle down for you. Halo, preferably. You’ve always wanted to try it out.

You hear Jake take a breath so impossibly quick it’s almost a gasp. His eyes light up. Their spark smooths over your internal ache.

He grins. You think you do too.

The employee definitely looks like he wants to cry from relief.

“Yeah,” you say to Jake. “Give me a minute. Then I’ll be ready to go.”


	16. The one that was supposed to happen like six days in but kept getting pushed back.

"Buy me a drink, love?" he asks you, all blue skies and friendly smiles, but in the morning he's gone. 


	17. The one where they go to a music festival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh jeez I missed a day by 30 minutes.
> 
> Implied post-canon. Music Festival AU in honor of EDC this weekend lmao.

He’s sweet as summer amidst the overwhelming roar of the speakers. The surrounding crowd is soaked with sweat but Jake, in all his effortlessness, wears his like a healthy glow. He smiles bright and moves his body organic with the rest of the music festival. Lost in rhythm and time and the buzz of your enamored thoughts. It’s a sort of unspoken flow that you wish you could pick up on as shoulders crash against you and foreign elbows accidentally find your ribs. You, ever a contrast, have never been much of a crowd person. The hundred-plus degree heat was hardly helping either. 

“Isn’t it just the berries,” Jake sighs with such a romantic tone in his voice you briefly wonder if he is delirious from heatstroke. 

“I’m not sure I’d put it as ‘the berries.’ Nor would anyone from this century, probably,” you reply dryly. You ignore the familiar arm slipping around your waist in favor of taking a sip from your fifth water bottle of the day. 

“But that’s a fun one,” Jake says, frowning. “Fine then. Hip. This is so hip.” 

“Dehydration is lovely this time of year,” you quip back, gaining nothing but a hand being dropped from your side as you lose Jake yet again to the ocean of people around you. You sigh and adjust your posture. Your shoulders ache from holding your place in the sun all day. The festival life was truly not for you. 

You think fondly of Jane and Roxy, sipping drinks and eating catered food from within the air-conditioned VIP building. You had gotten Jake and yourself VIP tickets for that very same purpose, but had underestimated Jake’s willingness to get in over his head with the crowds. 

“You’re so glum,” Jake says into your ear. He’s somehow behind you now, hands on your waist. “How can you be so glum when there’s such jiving tunes?” 

Jake attempts to sway you to the beat of the current band’s drummer but only slightly succeeds. Your body tightens as you attempt to dance along. 

“You call yourself a man of the disc jockey persuasion and yet you’re somehow too stiff to dance,” Jake jokes. 

“I know it’s hard to believe, but apocalypse survivors aren’t exactly known for their ample opportunities to bust'a move.” 

“Mm,” Jake hums in agreement. “You could always practice.” 

A new song picks up to something scatteringly upbeat and Jake happily grips your torso again, swaying you to the left and right in almost-time. You laugh at his futile attempt. 

“Please don’t let me fuck your groove, bro. I’ll be here if you need me,” you say, casually shrugging away from Jake’s grasp. 

“No, no!” Jake replies. “I want to dance with  you , love.” 

“No, you really don’t.” 

“Oh no. You’re not shimmying out from under me this time, buster—” 

You press a soft kiss to Jake’s lips. Simple and chapped from dehydration. The quiet exchange is lost in the sea of a far more lively crowd, but Jake still flushes. 

“Go dance,” you smile. “I promise I’ll write you a rain check.” 


	18. The one where I decided not to use quotation marks for some reason.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk-didn't-get-sent-to-the-future-and-Jake-lives-in-the-states AU. But everything else is the same so... Sadstuck.

Dirk. Wake up.

Dave is suddenly everywhere. A hand jarring your shoulder, a voice grating across your ears. It’s rare that he sounds so commanding. His casual, Hollywood-chill exterior toughens into that of a resistance leader. His tone penetrates the sleepiness of your mind despite groaning protests. You scrunch your face and attempt to ignore his urgency, hoping to give yourself back to sleep before he can elaborate.

Jake’s been captured.

Your eyes flutter awake and you stumble out of bed, willing yourself to become alert as quickly as possible. It’s so urgent your knees almost don’t hold your weight.

Meeting. Now. Dave tells you. Without so much as a blink you scramble to grab your laptop and boot up your shades. You expect a snide comment, a joke about your weakness to the power of friendship, but Dave simply strides a foot in front of you, silent and commanding.

Your living room is already filled with your brother’s handpicked rebellion leaders. You recognize all of them, though more specifically the higher profiles of Owen Wilson, Shaq, Donald Glover, and Ben Stiller’s weird, sort of gaunt, face. Them, along with two dozen others, clamber around your brother, buzzing for information on the situation and whether or not they can smoke the pot he’s left lying on the coffee table.

Dirk.

Someone calls your name and in the midst of the chaos you see Rose sitting on your couch, poised as ever. Roxy is settled beside her, curled up like a cat on the cushions. Her bob of blonde hair is nestled comfortably in her mother’s lap. A quick analysis of her breathing tells you that she’s asleep. Considering the amount of people already gathered here, you can assume your brother let you sleep in too.

You ask what’s going on, tone as serious as you can manage. Concern still taints your voice, though. The end of your words crack in small testament to the fact that you were almost fourteen.

Jake’s missing, Rose tells you.

He likes to hike, you reply. 

Rose sighs, a hand coming up to rub at her temples in stress. 

Not this time, Dirk. We’ve already received the message.

You wait patiently through the night for orders, but all you hear is arguments. You hear your brother fighting passionately for something, only to watch his form shrink as another rebel points something out to him. He looks lost, confused, and it’s uncharacteristic considering how attuned he is to keeping appearances.

The fighting continues, but you can’t understand most of it when you don’t have a context to reference. You ask Rose if you can see the ransom message, but she shakes her head. You tell her you can handle it, that you’re old enough, that you trust yourself not to give into any emotions, but she shakes her head again, forehead crinkled in a somber expression.

By the time AR alerts you that it’s almost 5 am, you’ve had enough.

You sit up with a huff that briefly startles Roxy into the waking world. Rose calls you by your full name but you have salt on your tongue and glaring eyes only for your brother. In a clinical, cold voice you ask Dave if you should trace the message—whatever it is—and send him the origin coordinates. It would at least be something productive as opposed to the free-tickets-at-Arby’s circus shitshow he was currently busy putting on.

A hush falls over the crowd as every one of them turn to stare at you.

We’re not instigating a rescue. Dave tells you, after a long, deathly pause.

Your eyes widen.

What?

We’re not instigating a rescue, he says again.

Your temper flares and your adrenaline spikes, a rush of energy flooding through you as your audience—your rebellion—refuses to meet your eye.

He’s a kid, you say. He’s just a kid. He’s just a—You can’t leave him—

Dirk, Dave attempts to reason.

Give me a fucking break. What does she want, money? We’ve got plenty. Information? Feed her fake shit. You cannot stand there and tell me you’re just going to abandon Jake in the heart of enemy territory—

She wants you.

Your voice dies in your throat. You stare up at your brother, frozen.

She wants you, Dirk. And I can’t give her that.

Emotions flood your veins. Bitter and terrified and lost. You imagine Jake’s bright eyes lighting up a dreary cell somewhere, just brushing the fingertips of your too-short reach. He’s lonely and cold but whistling a tune and maybe smiling up at the little window in the corner, the one that looks up into the infinite night sky, waiting for a rescue that isn’t coming. 

Something drags long and jagged across your heart, pooling blood and popping stitches. Words bubble in your mouth as tears leak from your eyes and only bits and pieces taste coherent on your tongue but  _Jade trusted you_ and _you promised her you’d keep him safe_ and _I love him—I love him—_ keep pouring out of you anyway until Rose is sweeping you up in her arms and smothering you against her shoulder and pressing shooshes into your forehead in an action you can only digest as a cue to shut up.

Your brother’s face falls.

He tells Rose to take you back to bed and that he forgets, sometimes, that you’re thirteen. It’s patronizing and infantilizing and all sorts of bullshit-ilizing and you break from Rose just to look at him. To stare at him. To get one final good look at the man about to abandon your best friend, the boy who comforted you through countless sleepless nights alone in your Houston safehouse, the boy who wrote you a silly friendship song on a grandmother’s guitar he barely knew how to play, the boy who made your cheeks light up, occasionally, when you thought too hard about him.

Go to hell, you say.

Dave’s eyes flash in fear behind his shades. He opens his mouth. Don’t—

You’ve already bolted out the door. You’re almost fourteen: you can handle yourself. Even on the front step of the Crocker corporation. You can feel the lingering scrape of Rose’s fingers from where she attempts to catch your shoulder. You can feel the brief tug of a T-shirt collar on your neck where Dave attempts to snag you by your clothes.

It’s not until you’re flashstepping along the dawn-lit pavement that Dave’s final words catch up with you: 

Don’t—Dirk, you’re all I have, don’t—

Unfortunately, you didn't have the foresight to bring cash in your grand escape, nor a map of the Los Angeles bus transit. Your brother's cohorts find you staring at a city map 12 blocks away, and promptly lug you into the back of a black car with tinted windows and the faint smell of marijuana. Snoop Dog sits in a backwards-facing seat in front of you and attempts to offer his comfort and a murmur of words that sound vaguely like sage, paternal advice, but you simply shrug him off, look out the window, and try to avoid crying. 

You're locked in your apartment's saferoom. It's windowless and reinforced with concrete. Food storage boxes line the walls and your sole source of entertainment is a TV hooked up to a Game Cube. You feel like a prisoner. With a dull ache in your stomach, you remember Jake actually is.

Please, you ask Dave. Who sits on the futon in your room and holds his head in his hands. This is the first time in the past two hours you've stopped screaming at him.

He tells you that you're going to understand why he's doing this when you're older. That some things are bigger than others. That some very special things take priority over everything.

You tell him that Jake is the most special thing you've ever known, but he just shakes his head.


	19. The one where it's the only demonstuck I ever done did.

You spend hours looking through the tomes Rose lends you. Sifting through pages on familiars, summons, lesser demons, greater demons, witch alliances, the works. 

You don’t know why you’re looking towards such unearthly, hellish methods of obtaining a boyfriend. If you knew you were going to stoop this low you would have just created an account on Christianmingle three months ago.   Regardless of your methods, though, it’s a universal truth that you’re getting desperate. 

Necromancy would mean getting it on with something dead. Servant crafting would mean something soulless. Your best shot was summoning a desire demon, but all of them so far appeared to be chicks. Not your cup of blood-tainted tea. 

Hours of pouring over aging parchment and dark Wikipedia articles leave you with minimal options. Though your effort is not without reward. Eventually you find a dude that isn’t connected to warbringing or pestilence. A lesser demon who rules over infatuation. The master of the flutters in young girls’ hearts across the world. 

And your own, apparently. That is a very flattering inked body portrait. You will have to thank Rose for her quality taste in illustrated books later. 

You are incredibly precise with your rituals, even if they are in the parking garage of your apartment building right next to a Prius. By the time you let a few drops of your blood fall on your carefully mapped symbol a rift in the world is already forming. It’s a deep, swirling mess spiked with green flashes. Menacing and infinitely deep. 

Your demon drifts out at a lazy pace, floats above you for a grand total of five seconds, and collapses to the floor. 

He’s naked but stark clean. Glowing softly in the dim lighting of the back of the parking garage. He looks up at you with bright green eyes and smiles. Shifts his legs together. Extends his arms towards you. 

“Aren’t you quite the charmer,” he hums. 

Something warm spreads through your veins. 

“I’ve summoned you for a contract,” you state. Your voice is serious but your cheeks flush at his figure. 

“What year is it?” he asks, ignoring you. He lets his hands drop when he realizes you’re not getting anywhere near him until contract affairs are settled. “I haven’t been out and about since… Turn of the century? Yes, yes. That southern belle and her gentleman suitor. She wanted him to get all aflutter when he saw her so goshdamn badly—” 

“I wish to establish a ten year term, with possibility for life if things go well.” 

He glances, bored, at you. 

You stall. He stares. 

“It’s 2011,” you say, finally. 

“Jeepers. Been a while.” He stretches out his arms and rolls his shoulders. “I suppose if you’re going to go through the trouble of summoning a creature from beyond the void to cement a relationship with your desired partner, you’d rather them be infected with sex than infatuation. I’ve become a bit outdated for a demon, I’m aware.” 

“I’m not looking to charm someone. Shit’s a little too morally dubious, even for my standards,” you say. 

He laughs at you. “You are aware you just summoned a demon, correct? I’m not one to judge character but in terms of moral grayness—” 

“I want a relationship with you.” 

His head snaps up to you, confusion ghosting across his features. He doesn’t have the strength to stand up yet but he frowns from where he lies on the rough cement and sidewalk-chalked summoning circle. 

“That’s a new one,” he huffs. “You humans. Always so experimental. I can appreciate the taste for adventure but Christopher Christ you all grow stranger by the day.” 

You clench your fists and steel your nerves. You were doing this. 

“10 years. I get free will. You don’t have to do anything but stick around.” 

“And what’s in this little market bargain for me?” he asks. 

“Some good old fashioned southern company,” you drawl. “And my soul, post-death only.” 

Jake’s eyes light up at that, but he doesn’t say anything. Your pulse races as the seconds tick by. 

“You can have a piece now, if you want. As proof I won’t sucker you out of it,” you say, words dry against your tongue. 

You get a nod at that. But no comment. You clench your teeth through the silence. 

“And,” A second of hesitation before you let it fall from your mouth without shame. “—And my virginity. You can have it fully. I don’t care.” 

Jake leers at the proposition. 

“Dealio,” he chimes. Something heavy strikes through the air. “Don’t worry though, I make for quite the cowboy in all aspects of a relationship. You’ve chosen well.” 

You let slip a smile.   “Don’t call yourself ‘cowboy’ again and I think this will be the start of a beautiful partnership.” 

This time when he opens his arms to you, you kneel down and embrace them. Lending him your strength and your soul. Feeling his lips ghost across your neck, his hand dig into your hair, your heart clench and soar in your chest from the whiplash of emotions giving yourself to him entailed. 

“You’ve chosen well,” he repeats. In your ear. Hot and overwhelming. 

Maybe you have. 


	20. The one where I'm really tired.

TT: <3  
GT: <2  
GT: Oh bother.  
TT: Nice.  
GT: Shove off!!  
GT: <3  
TT: <2


End file.
